Pages

Monday, October 1, 2012

I want to live like that!

My across-the-street neighbor popped in the other day to rant about Wells Fargo. Mind you, she hasn't a clue about our financial situation, but we've been neighbors for 17 years. She is an at-home mom with one teenager at home and another at an in-state university. I would guesstimate that our household incomes are fairly similar. We live in a modest neighborhood, and we both drive our cars into the ground.

But back to the rant. She said her husband had stopped by the ATM to get some cash and called her asking why their checking account balance was so low. She had no idea, so she went online to look. Turns out Wells Fargo had made a mistake and added a zero to a payment. But that's not what left me with my mouth hanging open.

While she's telling me this, she says "And there was only $1,700 left in the checking account!" Seems the check she had written for $800 to pay a bill had been debited from her account in the amount of $8,000. And AFTER that much was taken out, she STILL had $1,700 in her account! Holy Cow!!! Is this how other people live??

But I started thinking. If things had turned out differently for us, and we didn't owe everybody in the universe, maybe we'd have a healthy bank account, too. That's the goal, right? We have a decent income. It should be more than enough to cover our expenses. And it would, if we didn't have all these debts. I can't even imagine having that much money sitting around with no place to go. Although even when we are out of debt, I don't expect to have thousands sitting around in a checking account tempting us to spend.

But how great will it be when a bank error only irritates us and doesn't send us over the edge?

8 comments:

It would be great to have that much money to just sit on. I cannot imagine have that much. I feel like I will be in debt forever. But slowly it gets better all the time. I think you and I will be out of financial purgatory about the same time.:)

I find it interesting that she so freely ranted about it. There are times that I did have that much in my checking account but it was allocated for this or that. I wouldn't share that with anybody except for as an anonymous PF blogger. You will get there. We all have our own set of circumstances.

My mom and dad have checking accounts like that. I would have never known except for my mom's illness. Then I had to take care of their checkbooks. Was not use to seeing numbers that big in a checkbook register. Lol!

Honestly, I don't dream of having too much money to sit around (although, it definitely wouldn't hurt to have that). Being debt-free and having a stable amount in my bank account is enough, and the key to that is to constantly monitor your spending and establish a budget plan.

For me, being debt-free is enough. But having a healthy bank account for the occasional rainy day wouldn’t hurt. But still, she was only irritated? If a company deducted $7,200 from my account for no reason, I would charge right into their office and give them a piece of my mind.